Crime is Murder (13 page)

“Fifteen thousand,” she murmured. “Fifteen thousand that we know of within the last three years. And the doctor mentioned that Alistair Hubbard had given more than his estate. There may have been a bequest as well. I wonder if Miss Winch was insured.”

“Whatever are you talking about?” Johnny demanded.

Lisa sighed. “Nonsense. Pure nonsense, at least, that’s what my rational nature tells me. But my fanciful side—”

“Fifteen thousand dollars!” Johnny exclaimed. “I get it now. That’s Duval’s insurance plus Gleason’s award money.”

“Exactly. Marta says she doesn’t know anything about it.”

“Marta
says!
”

“I have reason to believe she’s telling the truth. She wants to go away with Joel Warren and be married. That’s why winning the Cornish Award is so important to her. If she’d taken in fifteen thousand dollars in the past three years, why would she be so anxious for a mere award now?”

“It could be a hobby,” Johnny suggested. “Or maybe she doesn’t really want to marry Joel. Maybe he’s insured, too.”

Johnny could be most distracting. But Lisa refused to think about that now, knowing she would become hopelessly lost in confusion trying to follow two paths at once. Concentrate on the hard cash. Unless it was hidden away in some bank, it should show somewhere. If there had been profit from the deaths of anyone connected with Marta Cornish, look for the profit. Fifteen thousand dollars couldn’t just vanish.

“I could make it vanish,” Johnny said, when Lisa voiced the thought.

“But you would have something to show for it.”

They drove back to Bellville in the heat of a waning afternoon. It was too hot for conversation and Lisa was glad. The problem she’d posed was only one of many. The many broken threads, the many indistinct faces. It was good to get near the lake again. Better to climb the Pineview Road up The Bluffs. Here the wind came fresh off the water, and its coolness seemed to restore the mind.

“Ruth Graham’s maiden name,” Johnny said suddenly. “I forgot to tell you. It’s Wallace. I asked Carrie. She’s the last of an old Bellville family. Her father was some kind of partner with Walden Bell. Carrie says that’s one reason Ruth doesn’t like anything Cornish. Claims she’s as much social register as the queen of the mansion.”

“That’s nice,” Lisa murmured.

“It is? Why?”

“Because I’m planning a small dinner party. There’s nothing like entertaining the best people to make a stranger feel at home.”

It had been a good many years since Masterson House prepared for guests. The formal dining room was a vaultlike hall filled with carefully covered furniture that had to be undraped, dusted, and set in order. The silver, china, and glassware were brought out of chests and cupboards to be washed and polished, and the windows were thrown open to bring in a bit of sunlight and freshness after the long abandonment to time.

“It doesn’t take long for a house to run down,” Lisa observed, “or to revive it again with just a little effort.”

“A
little
effort?” Wrist-deep in silver polish, Johnny looked askance.”I know all this sudden social consciousness has something to do with the ‘Cornish curse,’ “ she added, “but why leave out the main characters? Don’t you owe Nydia a return bout after the fracas you were invited to a few weeks ago?”

“Perhaps I do,” Lisa admitted, “but that would spoil all the fun.”

“The other guests wouldn’t talk about Marta you mean?”

Lisa smiled. “You’re a bright child,” she said. “You do catch on quickly. Now let’s see, what else do we need?”

A vaultlike room, much too large, much too formal, and formality seals tongues rather than loosens them.

“Flowers,” Lisa decided. “When you finish with the silver, Johnny, look in the lower part of the large buffet. There should be a bowl to use as a centerpiece—”

Lisa stopped. Johnny was looking at her strangely again.

“There should?” she echoed.

“Naturally,” Lisa said. “Where else would one keep such a bowl?”

And then she went out into the garden to cut some flowers.

It was the first of July. Flowers, unlike houses, managed to renew themselves; and the hardier of the plants in the garden still survived and blossomed. Lisa carried a basket, a shears, and a pair of cotton gloves. She was donning the gloves when Marta appeared at the garden gate.

“You look positively rustic,” Marta called. “You look as if you belong here.”

Marta was smiling. She had her flair back, but not so exaggerated as it had always been before. She’d exchanged that listless pastel dress of the mad tea party for a bright red blouse and a linen skirt, and there was a shining something in her eyes as if she were a child about to open a surprise package.

“And why shouldn’t I belong?” Lisa asked.

“In Bellville?”

Bellville was pronounced with such a tone of disgust that Lisa had to laugh. She’d found a rose, a beautiful specimen from one of the hardier climbers. “Look, isn’t it lovely?” she asked. “Do you know, I’ve clipped roses in the south of France that weren’t half so lovely!”

“That sounds like a story with a moral,” Marta said.

“Heaven forbid! There’s nothing duller than stories with morals—unless it’s understanding people. You know what I mean—people who are always rushing up when you’re in trouble to tell you how to solve your problem because they understand. If they did understand they’d have enough sense to keep their mouths shut.”

“I know what you mean,” Marta said.

“Of course, I never do,” Lisa added. “Keep my mouth shut, that is. Now, why are you hanging on my garden gate grinning like a cat who’s just consumed a warbler?”

It was Marta who laughed now. Lisa had never heard her laugh before. It was something that should happen more often.

“I’ve done it,” she announced.

“The concerto?”

“The concerto. I never really thought I would, but I did finish it and got it postmarked before the dead line.”

“Wonderful!”

“So I’m practically rich and famous and—”

Marta was still hanging on the gate. It was unlatched. It swung in and out and she swung with it, more like a child than a young lady and accomplished artist. Her glow faded.

“—and scared,” she added.

“Of course,” Lisa said.

“No, I mean really scared. I did my best. I tried. But it isn’t good enough, Miss Bancroft. It just isn’t good enough!”

First laughter, then despair. “Why don’t you let the judges decide that?” Lisa suggested.

“But you don’t understand how important it is. You don’t understand what it means if I don’t win. I didn’t even let myself think of that while I was working so hard to finish. I thought of Joel, mostly, and of Paris, and how everything would be different after I’d won. But the second after I’d left the post office, I wanted to grab back my entry because I knew it wasn’t any good.”

Marta looked so tragic something had to be said.

“For your information, that sensation isn’t exclusive to authors of musical compositions,” Lisa said. “It doesn’t mean a thing.”

“But it does! It means everything. That’s the trouble.”

A twinge of temper had returned to Marta’s voice. For a moment it was the old Marta again. The gate stopped swinging. She stood still, her feet wide apart, her eyes lowered.

“Oh, I know what you’re trying to tell me,” she said, “and if I really were determined to be a musician you would be right. I’d be excited and anxious about the judging, but losing wouldn’t crush me. It would just be sort of an incentive to go on. But it’s not like that with me. It’s not the music; it’s the award.”

“The escape,” Lisa suggested.

Marta looked up. She wasn’t angry any more—just troubled.

“And I’m not being understanding,” Lisa added quickly. “I just happened to have had a long talk with Joel one day.”

“All right, it’s the escape,” Marta agreed. “Can you blame me?”

“I try not to blame anyone for anything,” Lisa said. “Sometimes I even try not to blame myself. So far as I can see, you have every reason to dislike Bellville. But why is the award so important? You’re almost twenty-one, Marta. Soon you’ll inherit—”

“I don’t want that money!” Marta cried. “I don’t want anything that belongs to them!”

Them
. The word stood between Lisa and Marta like a roadblock. Remove it and the way might be cleared.

“What do you mean?” Lisa demanded.

For a moment she was afraid Marta would turn on her heel and leave the question unanswered. She looked back off toward the direction from which she’d come. Beyond the trees, beyond the path, there was a house.

“Bell Mansion,” she said. “My great-grandfather’s house, my grandfather’s house, my mother’s house! No wonder my father built a little studio for himself. He had to have something for himself, didn’t he? He had to have something!”

“Is that why you go there when you’re troubled?” Lisa asked.

Martin Cornish’s daughter stood by the garden gate. Her eyes were dark and brooding, her mouth sensitive, her hands long and restless with the catch. She belonged in that portrait beside him. But she didn’t have the portrait. She didn’t have her father. She only had an old ruins.

“I don’t like that house,” she answered finally. “And I don’t want the money. She can have it—all of it.”

“Who can have it, Marta?”

“Nydia.”

And then the quiet tension that had superseded that one flare of temper gave way to a poor attempt at a smile.

“I’m behaving badly again, aren’t I?” she asked.

“Very badly,” Lisa agreed.

“And I always shall. The people who talk about me are right—”

“No, Marta. No—”

“But they are. Not
what
they say, perhaps, but just the same they’re right. I’ve been thinking about that ever since that day you found me down at the ruins. Do you remember what you said about Howard? You said that he was weak and would have destroyed himself one way or another anyway. You didn’t want me to think that I’d driven him to do what he did, and you did help me; but lately I’ve been thinking how right you were. Howard was weak. That’s why we were friends. We recognized one another. I’m liable to do just what he did one day.”

“Marta, you’re talking nonsense!”

The smile was even poorer now. “Am I?” Marta challenged. “You just wait and see. If I don’t win that award and get away from this town, you just wait and see!”

It was bravado, of course. It had to be. Marta didn’t wait for any further challenge. She did what Lisa had been expecting her to do all along—turned on her heel and strode off down the path. Bravado—and yet a little trouble had crept into Lisa’s eyes. She was Martin Cornish’s daughter, after all. The whole conversation made the dinner party all the more important.

The hostess of Masterson House sat at the head of the table feeling exactly like an animal trainer at a circus. Lisa had arranged the seating with care. At her left sat a smart, glittering Ruth Graham, easily the best-dressed woman in Bellville. The fact that her competition was negligible didn’t seem to discourage Ruth. She was conspicuously overdressed for the company, but being conspicuous seemed to fill some inner need. Of the men, only Tod had worn a dinner jacket. The Grahams, at least, were matched. At Lisa’s right, sat the reluctant Dr. Hazlitt. He didn’t have to announce his reluctance. It was there in every gesture, every word he didn’t speak. Why a man with such an obvious distaste for social functions hadn’t begged off on the grounds of his professional demands was a question to consider. Perhaps the doctor had gotten wind of that excursion to Granite and was curious.

Next to the doctor sat Miss Oberon. Miss Oberon had chosen organdy for the occasion, a soft flowing organdy quite appropriate to the sultry evening, but completely ineffective draped limply over her flat bosom. Violet organdy. Lisa smiled at Miss Oberon, and Miss Oberon smiled back. Her eyes were slightly glassy. It might have been the excitement of what was probably a most unusual occasion for her, or it might have been the effect of the one dry Martini she’d carefully sipped before dinner. Cocktails could make a dinner party interesting, particularly for a hostess who was a total abstainer. Already Lisa knew that Agatha Watts, the plump, matronly wife of the banker, didn’t touch liquor—nor did lips that touch liquor ever touch hers. With one eye on his wife, Stanley had refused a predinner drink. With the Grahams, on the other hand, the situation was reversed. It was Tod who gingerly accepted one cocktail while his wife polished off three. With these little footnotes absorbed and tucked away, Lisa could regard her menagerie with a modicum of understanding.

Dr. Hazlitt, Miss Oberon, Professor Dawes and Agatha Watts—these four lined the side of the table to Lisa’s right; Ruth Graham, Stanley Watts, Johnny and Tod Graham filled the opposite side. It was almost like a board meeting, except for the absence of Miss Pratt and her shorthand book and the regal Nydia at the end of the table. But Nydia wouldn’t have belonged at this party. A circus can have only one ringmaster.

And in time they began to converse.

“I’m always so stimulated by the festival,” Miss Oberon announced. “After all these years, you might think I’d tire of it, but each season seems more exciting than the last. It’s really the only gala affair in Bellville.”

It must have been the Martini. Miss Oberon’s voice was unusually high-pitched. And her dinner companion was unusually quick-witted.

“Now, that’s rather appropriate, isn’t it?” Professor Dawes responded. “After all, the festival is meant to be a memorial to Martin Cornish. From what I’ve heard about Bellville’s illustrious son, he had a few gala affairs himself.”

Touché, Professor. Lisa smiled again. Curran Dawes had caught the spirit of the occasion and was doing his bit to get the show on the road. But Tod Graham wasn’t happy tonight. Perhaps he was worried about the possible effect of those three Martinis his wife had consumed.

“Don’t let Nydia hear you say that,” he cautioned. “She’s practically deified Martin Cornish in her mind. I’m sure we’d all hate to lose a good English teacher at the high school.”

“Is it really that bad?” Johnny asked. “I mean, does Nydia Cornish really have that much authority in this town?”

“She’d have no authority whatsoever if certain people didn’t kowtow to her,” Ruth snapped. “She’s just getting by on past glories.”

“Now, Ruth—” Tod began.

“Well, it’s true. We all know that.” Ruth leaned closer when she talked. It wasn’t so much the aroma of the Martinis that caused Lisa to draw back as it was the glare of reflected light glittering from the woman’s overjeweled throat. “Miss Bancroft, when my father was associated with Walden Bell, Walden the second, that is, the old man was worth nearly a million dollars—even if the mill was running only half-time. But when Walden forced Martin to marry Nydia—”

“Forced?” Tod repeated. “That’s putting it a little strong, Ruth.”

“That,” Ruth replied icily, “is putting it the way it should be put if one isn’t afraid of the truth.”

It was more than an answer; it was a complete squelch. Tod flushed but remained silent.

“Everybody knows that Martin Cornish had his choice of marrying Nydia or being cut off without a cent in the old man’s will,” she continued. “Cornish was no fool. He married her a few minutes before the old man died and inherited control of the Bell fortune. You can imagine what a man like Martin Cornish did with money! He had no sense of values at all!”

The color mounted in Miss Oberon’s face.

“Money!” she exclaimed. “Why should Martin Cornish have to understand anything so sordid as money? He was a genius. The greatest musical genius of our age!”